


Off the Wagon

by Anonymous



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Cooking, Incest, M/M, addiction discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:26:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28176867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Diego and Klaus talk about a few different things.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44
Collections: Anonymous





	Off the Wagon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spikeymarshmallows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikeymarshmallows/gifts).



> Written for the TUA Secret Santa! I hope you enjoy it!

"How did you end up falling off the wagon after all these years?" 

"You mean after the man I loved went off to die - when I _knew_ he was going off to die - while I was stuck in the nineteen sixties?" Klaus paused his chopping, to give Diego a Look. "To say nothing about the fact that I was _stuck_ back in that godforsaken decade in _Texas_."

"You weren't the only one stuck in Texas, y'know," Diego said after a moment, leaning against the counter. 

"You were locked up in a funny farm for a few months," Klaus said, making a dismissive gesture with the knife, which made Diego lean back. "You got the _good_ drugs, lobotomies weren't even a thing at that point..." He gave a sigh. "You even got the nurses in the cute white uniforms! See, when _I_ got hauled off to the psych ward, it was just me and a bunch of burly guys in scrubs."

Diego raised an eyebrow. "You're envious of the fact that I was stuck in a mental institution in the sixties, while you got to be a cult leader," Diego said, deadpan.

There was a pause.

"Y'know, when you put it like that," Klaus said, and he scraped the onion he had been chopping into the bowl next to him, and reached for a bell pepper.

"So why'd you fall off the wagon," Diego repeated. He took a piece of chopped up tomato from a separate bowl, nibbling on it, and he dodged the half hearted swat that Klaus directed in his direction. 

"Because the wagon ain't shit," said Klaus, "and anyway, that's a _very_ personal question. Maybe I'm not comfortable telling you that."

"Since when do you keep _anything_ to yourself, eh?" Diego tapped his foot. "You're an open book." Then he winced, and Klaus gave him a sidelong look. There was some history playing out behind Diego's eyes, but not the kind that Diego seemed willing to share. 

"Even open books have some pages you can't see," he said, and then he smiled, please with himself. "Ooh, that's a good one. I should use that for -"

"You are _not_ starting another cult," Diego said sharply. "Especially not now." 

Neither of them said what "now" entailed - all the craziness with the Sparrow Academy, the latest disaster that was threatening the world, and... well, everything else that went with it. 

Klaus flapped his free hand, and cut the top off of his pepper. "Why does everyone always assume it's a _cult_ I'm planning?"

"Because you started one already," Diego said. "I dunno. Maybe you giving up sobriety for a bit is a good thing. You lose some of that crazy charisma when you're high, makes you less dangerous."

"You think I'm charismatic?" Klaus put a hand on his heart, like some movie starlet, or maybe a Broadway actress playing for the cheap seats. "Why Diego, I think that's the nicest thing you've said about me!"

"We both know that's not true," said Diego. "So what are you saving up all these inspirational quotes for, if you're not planning on starting another cult?"

"Okay, first off," Klaus said, "I didn't _plan_ to start a cult. You use a little bit of flim-flammery in order to impress your sugar mama and keep yourself in the lifestyle to which you'd grown accustomed -"

"I don't know if I'm more weirded out by the fact that you had a sugar mama, or the fact that you just used the term flim-flammery," Diego said. He took a piece of pepper off of the cutting board, avoiding another swat from Klaus. "You sound like Dad when you say that."

"What, sugar mama?" Klaus wrinkled his nose. "D'you think he ever had one? Since he had all those ridiculous projects he was involved with and he had to fund them _somehow_..." Klaus trailed off, and then he wrinkled his nose. "Actually, never mind. Forget I started that."

"Too late," Diego said, and he scowled at Klaus. "You _had_ to put that in my head, didn't you?"

"I'm not responsible for how your brain works," Klaus protested. "Hell, I'm better responsible for how my _own_ brain works."

"I can't really argue with that," Diego said, "but I feel like I should."

"But that's not an argument," Klaus said, and he was frankly proud of himself, as he reached for a garlic clove.

"So," said Diego, "you didn't answer my question."

"Which one?" Klaus put down the knife, picking up a garlic glove and squinting down at it. "You know, we're back in the twenty first century. We could _buy_ pre-minced garlic, and it would save us so much time and effort."

"Lazy," Diego scolded.  
"I have seen you eat _actual raw eggs_ ," Klaus said. "If that isn't the epitome of actual laziness, I don't know what is." He crushed the clove of garlic beneath the blade of his knife, and then he set to chopping it. 

"That's to make sure I get all of the nutritional benefits that are sapped out of it from cooking," Diego said, but he sounded a bit like he was grasping at straws. 

Probably because he was.

"It got easier to be not-sober than to be sober," Klaus said, after a moment of silence. "And before you ask, not-sober is not the same as being drunk or stoned."

"What?" Diego frowned.

Klaus put the knife down this time, before he began to gesture. "The state of not doing drugs or drinking is not the act of being sober, because being sober is like. A _conscious_ decision. It's like being in love."

"I'm not following," Diego said slowly.

"Being not in love is really easy," said Klaus. "I can easily walk around being not in love with The vast majority of the population. But not being in love with them is different than choosing not to love someone."

"Bro," Diego said, his voice deadpan, "I've never known you to avoid a feeling that you couldn't milk for all the attention that you could get."

There was a pause, as Klaus tried to think of a rebuttal. Then he stuck his tongue out at Diego, and went back to chopping.

"Anyway," Diego added, "why would you _want_ to stop being in love with someone, if they make you happy?"

Klaus shrugged. "Shit is complicated," he said, which was about all he felt like putting into the conversation. 

"It usually is," Diego agreed. 

There was an awkward silence, broken only by the sound of Klaus chopping.

"So why are you cooking?" Diego opened a cupboard and took out a glass.

"Can't I follow my occasional urge to engage in simple domesticity?" Klaus shot Diego a sidelong glance.

"If you had any, I might say yes," said Diego. 

Klaus rolled his eyes. "Not all of us can live on wheat germ smoothies and raw eggs," he said. "I miss when cholesterol was less of a thing." 

"Cholesterol has always been a thing," Diego said. 

"Yes, but we got to live in that blessed time when people didn't care about it," said Klaus. Then he paused. "Or at least, the people we were around didn't care about it."

"I do _not_ get how your brain works," said Diego. "And you never answered me about what you were making." 

"Oh," said Klaus. "Pasta sauce." 

Diego blinked. "Pasta sauce?"

"Yeah," said Klaus. "I want to get some of my veggies in, and it's easier to make one big thing that's got veg in it, rather than make a bunch of different things."

"That seems downright _responsible_ of you," said Diego. "What brought that on?"

"You know I'm technically older than you now, right?" Klaus jabbed Diego in the chest. Irritation was beginning to bubble in his chest. "I get that I'm a fuck up, even in our family of fuck ups, but I do, in fact, know how to do some shit."

Diego frowned... and then he held his hands up in a surrendering gesture. "I'm sorry," he said, and that was unexpected. "I think I'm still getting used to... all of this." He waved a hand, indicating their home in this strange alternative universe, all of the end of the world business, all of the... everything. "Isn't an excuse to be a douchebag."

"Do you normally need an excuse?" It was out of Klaus's mouth before he had a chance to think, and he was almost wincing, except... well, Diego as grinning.

"Fuck you," he said, without much rancor.

"Just for that, I'm not gonna share any of my pasta sauce," said Klaus. 

"You've killed your taste buds with all that shit you put in your body," Diego said. "You always overseason."

"You're just used to funny farm food," Klaus said, his tone serene, and then he grinned. "Oo, lookit that. I made a tongue twister. Funny farm food. Funny farm food. Funny fram frood... yep, there I go."

"No, I think _you_ just can't taste anything," said Diego.

"Fine," said Klaus. "You can be sous chef." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the spice rack. "Although I reserve the right to add more stuff."

He was half expecting Diego to roll his eyes and walk off. 

Instead, Diego nodded, rolled his sleeves up. "Do you have a hair tie?"

Klaus blinked. "What?" 

"A hair tie," Diego repeated. "To tie my hair back. Because I'm gonna be working with food. I can't have my hair getting into it." 

"Oh," said Klaus. "That's remarkably forward thinking." He fiddled through the pockets of his pants, found three nickels, a stick of gum, and finally... a green hair tie. He handed it over to his brother, who efficiently tied his hair into a ponytail. 

"Why is everyone surprised when they find out I have basic adult life skills?" He got another cutting board, and took his own clove of garlic. 

"I suppose because you go around vigilante... ing," said Klaus. There was a _thud_ , and then Diego was beginning to chop the newly crushed garlic.

"There's nothing wrong with saving lives," Diego said, and he said it so calmly. 

"Well, no, not if you're, like, a doctor or a fireman or something," said Klaus. "But it feels a bit..." He let his voice trail off. "Anyway, we can once again return to the fact that you seem to subsist on a diet of kale smoothies and raw eggs."

"We both know that isn't true," said Diego. 

"Which part, the kale smoothies or the fact that it makes more sense to be a doctor or a fireman?" More chopping, and the rhythm of it was soothing, like rain on a tin roof. 

"Both of them, I guess," said Diego, and now he sounded meditative. He chopped faster than Klaus did, but then again, he had more practice with knives, didn't he?

"You should've been a chef," Klaus said. 

"First you're saying I live on kale smoothies and raw eggs, now you're telling me I should be a chef?" Diego raised an eyebrow. "Bit of a mixed message there, bro."

Klaus shrugged. "Nothing in life is straightforward," he said, although he was aware that wasn't an answer.

"Mom lets me help her cook sometimes," said Diego, and then he paused. "Or... she used to?" It was a bit of a complicated situation, wasn't it? Because the woman here was _sort of_ their mother, but also _not_ at the same time, because of all the weirdness that came with dimensional travel, in all those weird, complicated ways that it could come about. 

So was the woman who looked like their mother... actually their mother? She was still Grace. Sort of.

Maybe.

It gave Klaus headaches when he tried to think about it too hard, and frankly, he didn't need that in his life. 

"I always like how... straightforward it is," Diego added, and his voice was quiet. He sounded thoughtful, and there was a stillness to him, apart from the slow motion of the knife. Up and down on the cutting board, the shifting of his shoulder, the steady hand on the handle. "Cooking doesn't need to have any kind of moral dilemmas or complicated philosophical questions. It's just making food. You add things to other things, you apply heat or cold, you get food."

"Oh," said Klaus. "You know, I never thought of it like that before." He shrugged. "Food has mostly just been the thing that keeps me alive, and I do what I can to get more of it."

"So how'd you get into cooking, then?" Diego scraped the diced garlic into the little bowl, took another clove. 

"Oh," said Klaus, "well, you know how it is. You're bored, you've got an AA meeting the next day and you'd feel weird admitting you were drinking again so soon, but nothing is boring like being capital-S-sober -"

"The way you describe it, I don't think I've ever been capital-S-sober," Diego cut in.

"Be grateful," said Klaus. "It's super boring." 

Diego snorted, but didn't say anything else. He seemed to have run out of quips. 

There were a few minutes of silence, and it was making Klaus antsy. Finally, in desperation, he began to talk again. 

"So after the pasta sauce, I may try something a little different," he said, "but I'm not sure what kind of new. Is there anything in particular you'd like?"

"I'm not sure," said Diego. "I like to think I'm pretty open minded, when it comes to food."

Another pause, then; "I get why you wouldn't want to be a doctor, since you've got your needle thing," said Klaus.

"Listen," Diego said, and now he sounded like he was getting annoyed, "it's not -"

"Plenty of people have things," Klaus plowed on. 

"It's a phobia, not a thing," Diego said.

"Look at you, being all manly in admitting your phobias," said Klaus. 

"It's not really a phobia," he said, and he sounded faintly self conscious. "It isn't like a _real_ phobia."

"You pass out," Klaus pointed out.

"I may," Diego said, and then he grinned. "At least it isn't spiders, like Allison."

"Remember when we had to fight that giant robot spider?" Klaus smiled in spite of himself. He'd never been particularly... fond of their missions, but sometimes the sheer _absurdity_ of them could be funny.

"Yeah," said Diego, his tone thoughtful. "I dated a guy who was really afraid of spiders." There was a tenseness to his voice, which was tripping Klaus up. 

"It's a pretty common phobia," Klaus said, and then his ears caught up with his brain. _Wait, dating a guy?_ "That must've been a problem," he said. 

"What must have been?" Diego had stopped chopping, and was looking at Klaus intently. 

_I know you're supposed to give some kind of affirmation when someone comes out_ , he thought, _but I've never been good at that._ "I've seen where you live," he said instead. "Lived. Must have been spider central."

Diego rolled his eyes. "It wasn't so bad," he said. "Always saw myself as a bit of a spider, catching all the criminals."

"You wouldn't make a good Spiderman," said Klaus. "You wouldn't be throwing any knives, for one thing."

"I'm more badass than Peter Parker any day," Diego scoffed, and he was grinning, then; "D'you think Luther and Allison are... happy?"

There was a pause. That seemed a bit whiplash inducing. "I mean, they seem to be," said Klaus. 

"With each other," Diego clarified. 

"Oh," said Klaus. There was another pause, and he shrugged. "I guess," he said. "I mean, they seem to be happy enough."

"I just..." Diego paused. He looked awkward. "I just... I've been thinking about that. About them."

"It's kinda hard not to, with the two of them shooting cow eyes at each other all the time," said Klaus, wrinkling his nose. "It's weird, but..." Another shrug.

"Would you ever want to date someone you were related to?" Diego said it in a rush, and Klaus looked at him with one eyebrow up.

"I mean," Klaus said, and now he was staring at the ceiling, his expression thoughtful, "it depends on what you mean by related." His tone was getting meditative. 

"This sounds like some kind of stoner bullshit," said Diego, not unkindly. 

"No, like," Klaus said, "because we've got each other and we're all related, except we also aren't, since... y'know, genetics." 

"Family is more than genetics," Diego pointed out. 

"It is," Klaus agreed. "But our childhoods were so _weird_ , that, well..." He trailed off, shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I feel like... I dunno." Another shrug. 

"Real articulate," the Diego said, as he dumped more garlic into the bowl.

"Oh, shut up," Klaus said, without rancor. "Why? Are you planning on setting me up with someone? The list is a bit short, since I don't think Vanya is interested and -"

"Do you ever shut up?" Diego asked it in the spirit of gentle inquiry.

"Nope," Klaus said, chipper as anything.

"Do you want to... get coffee? With me?" Now Diego was blushing.

"Why would I want to get coffee? We have all the coffee we need here, since this universe's version of Dad doesn't seem to have a hate on for caffeine." Klaus frowned. Something was possibly happening, but he _had_ to be reading the situation wrong, because no way would - 

Diego put the knife down. He stepped closer, and he brushed a quick, dry kiss against Klaus's mouth, then walked off. 

If it was possible for someone to have a sheepish posture while walking, he somehow managed it.

Klaus, for once, kept his mouth shut. 

He did start humming as he went back to chopping, though.


End file.
